Stinker Madness - The Podcast for Bad Movie Lovers

Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy's Weird Gay Adventure

Freddy is back and this time he lulls us to sleep with whale song and LBGTQ social commentary! It begs the ultimate question - does Freddy actually appear in this movie?
Freddy 2 is an absolute bonkers experience and through-out is a complete and utter-turd. At no point does it make sense that it was a commercial success and likely should have destroyed the Freddy franchise (and thus would have prevented the LOTR trilogy from happening) but somehow was a massive win for New Line and kept the doors open for another ten years. I guess that really states to the allure of Mr. K.
Yet it can only exist in 1 of 2 ways, both of which have problems:
1) It's an allegory for the traumas/dangers of being a closeted homosexual in the homophobia of the 80s drummed up by Reagan's AIDS debacle.2) It's all a dream from start to finish in which Freddy takes 90 minutes to murder one kid.
1 can't be it, because it then opens up a ton of plot holes with Freddy's powers and if he even exists in the movie or not. Was Jesse just using Freddy as a scape-goat for his "villanous" homosexual ways? He's just a copy-cat? But then how is it that he explodes a parakeet? Riddle me that, guys? Then on the other side, if Freddy IS possessing Jesse then how is it he's murdering teens when they're awake?
2 can't be it, because the producers and writers say that is not the case. If we can't trust the people who wrote it then who can we trust? The walls of reality are crumbling!
Maybe this film does break the rules of our universe and now we are all living in Freddy's nightmare? Either way, you should probably check out Freddy 2 and try to help us make some sense out of the damn thing.

Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band - Frampton Comes Dead

So it turns out that Peter Frampton sucks - oh you knew that already? The Brothers Gibb surround themselves by people who can't sign and play as well as they do and let everyone else drag them into the depths of garbage. But Barry's hair looks amazing, at least.
Sgt Pepper's on it's face is a "do not do" movie before it even starts - you don't cover The Beatles unless you really are supremely talented, which The Bee Gees completely are, but the problem is that they allowed other people to be involved. You've got George Burns, Steve Martin, Alice Cooper, Peter Nicholas (yeah, who?), Donald Pleasance, Stargard and Frankie Howerd all covering Beatles tracks. Look, only a few people get to do that and none of you are qualified. Stop it! Stop IT!
And leading the "not-good-at-stuff" is the constant O-faced, Peter Frampton. He is the absolute worst. Consistently off-key and when "on" his face is off. His "acting" (he doesn't utter a single line of dialogue) is about as good as his mouth guitar.
As a whole, Sgt. Pepper's is a complete disaster and nothing works within it's pieces. Yet it doesn't have any of the yummy crummy goodness like The Apple, Breakin 2 or Can't Stop the Music. It has its occasional moments but you have to look at Peter Frampton to get to those points so its not really a fair trade-off.

Druids - When do the druids show up?

Christopher Lambert dons the worst hair we've ever seen and leads an uprising against the Romans only to ultimately accomplishing nothing and dies off screen. There's nothing good about this film.
Zzzz....Oh I'm sorry. You caught me napping after watching Druids. What did I miss? Oh, nothing. Absolutely nothing? Ok. I'll move on to something else.
Seriously, this movie sucks. Even for fans of Lambert's nonsense. Nothing happens. It's such a crappy Braveheart knock-off but fails in that it the world has not changed at the end of the movie. He doesn't even give the Romans that much grief. It's about as much grief as buying a $30 worth of lottery scratch tickets and finding 10 of them that are worth $1. Whoa the grievance...
Oh yeah - where the hell are the damn druids?!?! 
Seriously, don't spend a second of your time watching Druids. Go plant a flower. Eat a sandwich. Read a book about Gaul. Do ANYTHING but watch Druids.

Black Dog - The best bad truckin' movie ever

Patrick Swayze says Dalton was a weiner and gifts us the pyschopathic, blood-lusting, and man of the road - Jack Cruise. Along the way Meatloaf delivers his best, but still manages to get Asahi Guy murdered and bankrupts his own villainy scheme before it gets started.
Lets just get this out of the way - Black Dog is fantastic and is one of the few shining examples of perfectly bad in every way. Every bit of it is inept from the music, the casting, the script, the acting, the directing and the editing and has the "it" factor on all those elements for bad movie fans. It's a glorious seam-less mess that you couldn't set out to do such a bad job and have it work so well together. It's stunningly perfect and beautiful and a complete train-wreck.
My next paragraph would like to be - "The best part of Black Dog is..." but I seriously can't say that. As soon as I think of something, say Meatloaf's character Red's seriously flawed villainy scheme (stealing his own stuff, make deal for stuff, rinse, repeat - never make any money) is instantly thrust into competition against say Asahi Guy's lack of steering or braking in the face of impending spolsion death or Jack Cruise showing his family how murder is just a darn good family activity or the wonderfully terrible ATF and FBI agent dynamics. There's no "best part" of this movie because it's ALL best part.
So stop what you're doing, fire this thing up whether alone or with friends (you'll just end up watching it again anyways), try not to fall off the couch with laughter and enjoyment and most importantly - do NOT be like Jack Cruise - I prefer breathing, thank you.

Breakin' 2: Electric Boogaloo - or How To Save the World

Let's face it - this movie stinks and rules. There's so little happening but no one notices because it's masked by CONSTANT break dancing. It's wall-to-wall. There might be more more dance/musical numbers in this than Caberet and Chicago and Grease combined. Now that might scare off the casual bad-movie goer who is here for movies staring shirtless men with guns, but don't be afraid - this thing is electric dog-poo on fire.
It's really something of a special deal when a movie crams this much non-diegetic, metaphorical story-telling using dance as the device and still manages to contain as much mind-boggling nonsense within those dance sequences. For most of us, we just check out during dance numbers as they are just a showcasing of people's abilities to move their butt around, but this is not that. There's a constant tone of bonkers throughout these numbers and must be watched; especially the surrounding extras.
The acting is hilarious, with two non-leads stealing every scene. The actors who played Lucia and Rhonda were both so bad that they had to be over-dubbed and the dub is absolutely laughable. Try not to fall out of your chair when Lucia helps Turbo bust out of the hospital.
It's an absolute spectacle of ineptitude, all while still being the most competent film Golan and Globus ever put together - and they did it in less than six months.
Breakin 2': Electric Boogaloo is an absolute must do for its historical importance but beyond that - it's just a damn good time.

The Adventures of Pluto Nash - "Adventures" is a strong word

The biggest flop in Hollywood history visits the podcast, eats all our food, backups the sewer system and kidnaps our children and then quietly makes us forget that any of it ever happened. Will it be worse than The Love Guru?
Nope.
The weird thing about Pluto Nash is that is just nothing. It doesn't make you angry. The jokes aren't groan-worthy. The plot doesn't cause your eyes to roll so hard they pop out. It's just a bunch of nothing. There may not be another movie that has ever made us feel so dispassionate towards it. We just don't care about it - not even enough to hate.
Which is likely it's fatal flaw. Don't get us wrong, it's a turd sandwich. But does it belong in the same discussion as other bottom 100 movies? If you gave a Ted Talk about the worst movies of all time, you'd be a jackass because Ted Talks are super narcissistic but you'd also spend zero time talking about the biggest flop in Hollywood history.
"Pluto Nash? Oh yes of course, but lets move on to House of the Dead."
So just don't bother with The Adventures of Pluto Nash. No one else has.

Angel Has Fallen - The Last Banning?

Banning comes back once again to save the President once again from an assassination attempt where not everything is not as it seems once again. It's the number one movie in America, but is it enough to keep the Banning franchise alive?
Make no mistake, Banning 3's plot statement above is the same as the other two but this film is a departure from the other two. Where the other two are a thin plot stuff around ludicrous action scenes and Banning eating the flesh of his enemies, this one mostly has Banning on the defensive and reacting to the violence around him instead of reveling in it. And while the villain is a complete moron (we'll get to that later) there's nothing really stupid that takes place in Banning's world. Let's put it this way - if there were no Banning 1 and 2, Banning 3 wouldn't be on the podcast. It's just a solid (if forgettable) action movie.
Now the villain, played by Danny Huston, keeps this inside the realm of the idiot plot from the bad guys standpoint. Banning of course, doesn't apply to the idiot plot because all he does is kill bad guys so it's not FULL idiot plot. However, wow. This company that Danny Huston's character runs has no chance of ever avoiding subpoena's and Congressional investigations. Like the day their file their incorporation, the company is all sent to Gitmo - because evil and COMPLETELY bad at being a bad guy is a dangerous combo.
It is clear that Gerald Butler has lost a step (he broke his neck in the last one and then got in a motorcycle crash right before this one) and some people might be a little disappointed in that (see Sam) but he's still charming, fun and kick-ass Banning - just a different, less psychopathic version of himself. Yet the real star of the show is Nick Nolte who plays Old Man Banning and is an absolute treat. Usually 2x of your fave action guy sucks, but 2x Banning is wonderful. Nolte completely steals the show and gives arguably the best performance that's ever been in a Banning movie.
For you? Maybe. If you don't love Banning by now, this one isn't going to bring you in to the warm, loving, fun and just darn good people community you sick, soulless bastard. But if you're like the rest of us, it just depends on if you like a "better" Banning movie, but less fun that the others. I for one, loved it and hope that this isn't the last time we see Mike Banning.

Hobbs and Shaw - 2/3 full of Bald Bros or 1/3 empty of Bald Bros?

The bald bros are back minus the biggest bald bro, so the bald bro stock is down! The 2/3 of the bald bros are forced to team-up to stop Thanos from killing everyone while learning about super-powered villains, love and friendship and forget about family, Vin Diesel and cars.
While there is a myriad of problems with Universal's fingers in their big franchise (of which there is many fingers) the team behind the action do a great job. This film is shot well, very well choreographed, has some genuinely funny cameos (that normally would have sucked ass), and some great film-making contrasting the two leads.
That's where the good stops.
The rest is a hot mess. The plot is absolutely stupid. The villains clearly have no clue on what there doing and just making one different movie negates the entire movie and gives them everything they want. The Idiot Plot has appeared again.
The movie looses focus on what its trying to achieve a third of the way through. It tries to shift away from the Torreto side of the F&F for about 30 minutes and then just clones it again (poorly). There's something that we can't put our finger on why it works in the "Family" side of the franchise but it doesn't work here, other than clearly lazy writing and really stupid villains.
At the end of the day, the biggest problem is a scary prospect for the future of franchises - the MCUing of Hollywood. Make no mistake - this isn't a Fast & Furious film, it's a Marvel movie with the F&F guys. Runtime, superpowers that aren't explained or needed, and even post-credit sequences make this an obvious attempt by the men in ties at Universal to cash in on those Disney zillions instead of doing what they do best - just make their own damn films. We are petrified that for the next 10 years every studio turns their blockbusters into just an crummy MCU film. Eek!
We're sad because Hollywood shouldn't be afraid of spin-offs but they can't just regurgitate the thing their spinning off and do it so poorly. It's not that its a crappy-bad movie, its just an ok-bad movie. You'll still have a good time but don't think this is going to give you any surprises. You'll likely forget about it the next day.

Convoy - So...where are we going, anyways?

All of the truckers team up to drive down the road hauling goods and.... freedom? Let's try that again. A bunch of cops chase a bunch of truckers down the highway because of their flagrant....trucking? Ok, ok, ok. Got it - Truckers Truck!
Seriously the plot of Convoy is one of the most dubious we've ever reviewed. One might argue that about 20 minutes of the movie actually has a plot of outrunning the law who wants to kill a fellow trucker because of abuse of power and racism, but that plot lasts for only a brief period. Within minutes of that plot being put together, the film shifts into Forrest Gump running across the US with people joining him because they think he's got all the answers. At no point, does anyone have a clue why they've joined a mega-convoy of truckers and why anyone cares about them.
Sadly, while the plot is absolutely bonkers the fun stops there. In such a film that had the budget and comes hot off the heels of Smokey & The Bandit, there's pretty tame stunts and not enough of those to begin with. The "bandit" (Kris Kristopherson) isn't charming (he's just gross), action packed (he gets his butt kicked in the only fight) and lacks motivation throughout the film. He's just a guy who is driving down the road to a completely unestablished destination.
It's just kind of boring and lacking in anything that we love about trucking films. This is a don't from us.

Prom Night II - Hello Mary Lou, Goodbye Plot

Well hello, Mary Lou. So good of you to drop in and see me. Wait what are you doing??? Why do you have the powers of all the X-Men combined? Are you like an evil ghost Rogue? How do you work and what is your reason for existence???? Argghghgghghg.....gurgle, gurgle.
The above is a perfect summation of what each character should be asking the spooky-ghost or spooky-demon or spooky-ghost-demon that is Mary Lou, a 1950s prom queen who got burnt up like Freddy and lives in a suitcase for 30 years only to return and enact dubious revenge upon various 80s teenagers whom had nothing to do with her death. Why Mary Lou chooses to do anything she does is beyond us and where she got her spooky-powers is another problem. Lastly, we really can't even begin to decipher the ending in which Mary Lou gets (what the movie tries to tell us) everything she wants, only to pull a Jason and not be dead so that she can take a road-trip with the kiddies.
This movie fits in perfectly with any of the other nonsensical movies we've reviewed over the years (Dreamcatcher, The Wicker Man, 88 Minutes, Lady in the Water) in that the script is so disjointed from its various moving parts that what you end up with in the end is a series of events that conflict with other events and character actions, with a dollop of heavy weirdness here and there that makes for a not-remember-able horror movie but a fantastic riffing voyage that will leave all audience members scratching their heads for days. Add in some bad acting, some odd casting choices, some super cheesy horror effects and then mash it all up into Carrie 3: The Shining on Elm Street and you've got a recipe for bad movie theater.
Streaming Do's and Don'ts
Serenity - Amazon Prime